We investigated the effects of a major revision of the differential and integral calculus curriculum, the primary goal of which was to improve STEM retention. The revamped curriculum has greater emphasis on the power of computing to help visualize patterns and gain insights to better prepare students for STEM majors, and less emphasis on…

Background: In the United States, the current 6-year completion rate in engineering is a mere 54% among full-time students who enter a 4-year course. Researchers have identified many reasons why students leave engineering, including academic difficulties and poor teaching. However, the problems experienced by the departing students are also…

This study was conducted to determine if embedding effective study strategies in a course would result in an increased use of these strategies and, therefore, increase success and retention in introductory-level science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses. An interdisciplinary team of STEM faculty members created study strategies…

This paper documents the hopes, desires and structural betrayals experienced by young people attending transfer schools in New York City. Transfer schools enroll more than 15,000 students each year who are disproportionately young people of color, poor and working-class youth, from immigrant families, and youth with disabilities. Most have fallen…

In the U.S. public educational system, the superintendent role is crucial for shaping student outcomes, yet it is predominantly occupied by White males (73%), with African American females making up less than 1% of these positions. Historical research on superintendents often overlooked gender and racial diversity, contributing to the…

Underrepresentation of females in college science, technology, engineering, and math impacts college graduation rates, pay disparity of females, and the local and global workforce. Research offers one concept, sense of belonging, as vital to motivation of and persistence in major. To address a sense of belonging for this population, some…

This dissertation examines the relationship between teacher retention and student perceptions of school climate in an urban school district, both in individual school years and across multiple school years. This secondary analysis uses a school-level measure of teacher retention from New York City (NYC) public schools and measures of school…

Purpose: The present study was designed to investigate persistence in preschool children with developmental language disorder (DLD) compared to similar-age peers with typical language (TL) on tasks designed to be moderately challenging, yet equivalent in difficulty for both groups. Method: Sixteen preschool-age children with DLD were matched to 16…

Teacher work engagement is critical for work performance and child development, yet there is a limited understanding of how it is shaped from the perspective of teachers' emotion. Based on the job demand-resource model, this study tested the relationship between emotional labor strategies, teacher efficacy, grit, and work engagement. Research…

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that influence the completion of PhD degrees and identify obstacles to completion at a Hispanic Serving Institution. Low completion rates are a national and global problem predicted to generate a critical shortage of professionals needed by society. The researcher utilized a phenomenological…

What drives children to explore and learn when external rewards are uncertain or absent? Across three studies, we tested whether information gain itself acts as an internal reward and suffices to motivate children's actions. We measured 24-56-month-olds' persistence in a game where they had to search for an object (animal or toy), which they never…

The purpose of this research is to understand the relationship among school conditions, teacher job satisfaction, intention to stay, and school type (charter versus traditional public schools) and to determine if school conditions, and thereby job satisfaction, influences teachers' intention to stay in the field. Understanding this is critical to…

Underrepresentation of socioeconomically, culturally, and/or linguistically diverse (SCLD) children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) and their families has become a focal point for researchers. This systematic review aimed to identify researchers' strategies for recruiting and retaining SCLD families of children with NDD, published between…

There is a teacher shortage in many parts of the state of Indiana. Teachers are experiencing high levels of stress and burnout and are leaving their schools and the profession. School principals are tasked with building environments and cultures to drive student achievement while working to encourage better teacher retention. This quantitative…

High-impact practices (HIPs) are anticipated to engage both traditional and nontraditional students in different ways, providing substantial educational benefits and correlating with better retention and engagement. This study reports on the development of an analytical tool to assess the impact of individual and collective HIP participation on…